>Pretty cool experience. I downloaded and burned a version of the SuSe distro. It worked on my computer without a hiccup. All devices, printers, sound cards... were detected and working properly. Very impressed. No need for a messy dual boot.
>
>http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/suse_linux/index.html
>Section is "SuSE Linux for i386 Live-Eval"
>
>This is a good solution for people that would like to use Lunix at a work (when forbidden to install it), at a web cafe, at a friend house... the possibilities are endless. I wish this could be done with Windows XP.
>
>The settings that you save are written to your C drive in a *.usr file.

yup, very nice, but limited with repect to software upgrades ro add-ons like CodeWeaver's QuickTime, for example.

That was a one iso download, wasn't it? What software did they include? OpenOffice? GIMP? Quanta? KDE 3.0 for sure, which would mean KMail, KNode, KOffice, etc... All your document files would be stored on the Fat32 drives. This could be a problem if you chose the NTFS format, because Linux only reads from that kind of partition. Writing to it is NOT recommended.


SuSE, and other distros, also feature a web server that is CD based (not installed) and extremely difficult to break into (nothing is fullproof) because when you reboot your configs are restored. You create your webserver CD by setting up your configs in a local iso file on a box not connected to the internet. Then you burn the Cd you'll use as your webserver. The same could be done with a lan server.

SuSE was my favorite distro from Sept 97 to Feb 02, then I switched from SuSE Pro 8.2 to Mandrake 8.2. A suprising experience because, in my experience, MDK 8.2 is significanly better in hardware detection and installation, and the maintenance software is faster and easier to use than SuSE 8.0. MDK update features are automatic also. Three or four button clicks and you have the latest security patches and software upgrades automatically installed. For example, while at BestBuy to pick up a new mouse for my wife's computer I saw a great deal on a Samsung ML-1210 laser jet printer. I had tried this printer with SuSE 8.0 a couple of months before I switched to Mandrake and found that SuSE couldn't install it unless I did a lot of hand tweeking of printcap and other files. I used to have fun doing that while I was learning about Linux but after awhile it gets boring. Then, the next time you test out a new distro of the release of a new version you have to do the tweeks again. Somewhere around SuSE 7.1 I decided that I wouldn't tweek config files anymore. The distro installer files will do it or else. So, I took it back.

I decided to see if Mandrake could install the ML-1210 so I took the "open display" printer home. I used DrakePrinter to uninstall my LexMark Z52 and then used it to install the ML-1210. It detected and identified it without assistance, then asked if I wanted to install it as the default printer. I clicked "yes" and a couple of seconds later it was done. The test page, and everything else I've tried since then, printed beautifully.

I really wasn't taking a risk this time because since last Feburary Samsung has gotten on board with Linux in a big way and is releasing Linux drivers for their printers as fast as they can write them. I had downloaded the ML-1210 driver and was ready to install it but found there was no need.
JLK